Having racked up unsustainable bills in supporting Beijing’s infrastructure master plan, Islamabad is bailed out by China to the tune of US$1 billion – leaving it more dependent than ever on its ‘all-weather ally’.
John Menadue
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BERTIL LINTNER. As Trump turns away, China gains in Myanmar (Asia Times 4/7/2018)
US leader has left predecessor Obama’s engagement policy to wilt on the vine, giving Beijing an opening to renew its trade and security agendas
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BHIM BHURTEL. India’s myopic ‘muscular’ neighborhood policy (Asia Times 2/7/2018)
Despite one “muscular diplomatic” debacle after another, India has been unrelenting in its bullying attitude toward its small and weak neighbors. India is imposing another economic blockade on a third South Asian country, Maldives.
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TILMAN RUFF. The treaty banning nuclear weapons one year on: history made, a solid start, here to stay, and miles to go before we sleep
One year ago, on 7 July 2017 at the United Nations in New York, 122 nations took a historic step when they voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Treaty filled a gaping hole in international law, providing a comprehensive prohibition on the last weapons of mass destruction to be declared illegal; the only weapons that could not only end all of us, but deny future generations of our kind and many others a right to be born. So in the race to end nuclear weapons before they end us, how is the Treaty faring one year on? (more…)
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JULIE SONNERMANN. Kids of migrant families do better at school – and we should think about why
Children of migrant families in Australia consistently outperform their more established peers at school. And new analysis using NAPLAN data shows schools with lots of migrant-background students not only achieve at higher levels, but they have higher growth over time on average too. (more…)
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ANDREW SALMON. South Korea unveils plan for N Korean economic enrichment (Asia Times 3/7/2018)
Ideas for the North’s development and regional integration, while ripe with promise, face obstacles and remain dependent on the US and denuclearization
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DANIEL OBERHAUS. 30 Years of Data Shows Asylum Seekers Are Not an Economic Burden (Motherboard)
A new study shows that giving migrants pathways to citizenship in European countries actually results in positive economic impacts, while asylum seekers don’t have a negative impact. (more…)
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PAUL KRUGMAN. Big business reaps Trump’s whirlwind (New York Times)
The bill for decades of cynical politics is coming due. (more…)
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JOHN QUIGGIN. Westward, look, the land is bright (Inside Story)
Amid more bad news from Washington come signs that attitudes are hardening against much of what the Trump presidency stands for. (more…)
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KATHARINE MURPHY. ‘We’ve turned a corner’: farmers shift on climate change and want a say on energy.
National Farmers’ Federation head Fiona Simson says people on the land can’t ignore what is right before their eyes. (more…)
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RICHARD A. BITZINGER. US, China cash in on Asia’s growing appetite for arms.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has just released its data on the global arms trade for 2017, and it is big news for Asia as a whole, and for China and the United States in particular. (more…)
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ANDREW JAKUBOWICZ. A Rose by Any Other Name: Reflections on the future of race discrimination and vilification in Australia
In a penultimate spate of inter-personal hostility between the current Race Discrimination Commissioner and his opponents in government and the media, the future of a Commissioner (RDC) and the enabling Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) have been flagged by Attorney General Porter as being high on his “to do” list. (more…)
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KERRY O’BRIEN. Speech to ABC Friends rally – Sydney 8 July 2018
Let me start with a quote: ‘…The ABC is a vital part of our nation’s polity. It is one of the great foundations of journalism and news gathering and broadcasting in the country. It has a very special place in Australia.’ That was Malcolm Turnbull in January 2014 when he announced a cut to the ABC’s budget of $254 million. (more…)
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GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Trump and Putin – One last word
My unfulfilled ambition was to put a new word into the English vocabulary. May I make a last attempt with an ugly word for an ugly thing? It is ‘neo-victimism’. It defines the dominant element into today’s great power relations. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. A wonderfully ‘Sydney-style’ rally was held on Sunday to galvanise support for the ABC
It was emotional, noisy, sweaty, energetic and organised chaos, as 1000 public broadcasting enthusiasts scrambled and fought their way into the 400 seat NSW Teachers Federation auditorium in Surry Hills.
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GREG AUSTIN: Counter-terrorism lessons for family murders
It is time to police family violence perpetrators as rigorously as we police terrorists. We can learn from the country’s successes in counter-terrorism work and perhaps apply some lessons to the family violence challenges. (more…)
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular connection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. (more…)
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Kevin Rudd on Xi Jinping, China and the Global Order (Asia Society Policy Institute 26/6/2018))
(On Tuesday, June 26, 2018, Asia Society Policy Institute President Kevin Rudd delivered an address to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore for The Significance of China’s 2018 Central Foreign Policy Work Conference. Below is the transcript of the speech. )
On 22-23 June 2018, the Chinese Communist Party concluded its Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs, the second since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 2012. The last one was held in November 2014. These are not everyday affairs in the party’s deliberations on the great questions of China’s unfolding global engagement. (more…)
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GREG HAMILTON. The New Art Of Looking The Other Way.
We have a Law Reform Commission that’s impotent, as well as a Commission for Human Rights that has no impact on the lack of rights of Australians. Is that accidental—or intended? Is there a chance for any sort of reform in this country before it slips up its own shirt-tails into eternal darkness and intestinal rumblings? (more…)
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BOB BIRRELL AND EARNEST HEALY. The Housing Affordability Crisis in Sydney and Melbourne
The housing affordability crisis in Sydney and Melbourne is close to the worst in the developed world. As of 2017, the ratio of median house prices to median household income in Sydney was 12.9 and in Melbourne 9.9. Only Vancouver and Hong Kong were as bad or worse on this metric. (more…)
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EVATT FOUNDATION EDITORIAL. Aspiration & Inequality
Many Australians no doubt winced last week when the Turnbull government claimed to represent ‘aspirational’ voters. In case anyone didn’t recognise the ghost of former Labor leader Mark Latham, this week Treasurer Scott Morrison recalled his signature image: ‘the ladder of opportunity’. (more…)
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CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. The Melbourne casino, and irresponsible gambling
Allegations by whistleblowers about the way poker machines are operated at the casino in Melbourne have underlined how Victoria’s Casino Control Act allows pokies to operate in ways that encourage harmful gambling. (more…)
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DAVID KANG. Reasons to be optimistic about North Korea (East Asia Forum)
There has been a torrent of whining about the Trump–Kim summit. Critics are calling it little more than a photo opportunity for a dictator, and claim that nothing was agreed while North Korea’s horrific human rights abuses were overlooked. Sceptics claim that the agreement is the same as previous agreements between the United States and North Korea, that Kim will never change and North Korea will never denuclearise, and that stopping US–ROK war games will reduce US military readiness in the event of conflict. (more…) -
LIZZIE O’SHEA. Witness K and foreign interference hypocrisy (Eureka Street 2/7/2018)
‘This Parliament will not allow interference in our elections or in our democratic processes,’ Senator Penny Wong declared recently. ‘We will not allow these to be subject to foreign interference, and we will not allow the covert subversion of our politics by foreign interests.’ It sounds like a perfectly reasonable aspiration, but not if you happen to be East Timor.
Over this last week, two remarkably contradictory things happened in Canberra. The Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter shepherded through Parliament some of the most significant changes to foreign interference laws in recent times (the subject of Senator Wong’s speech). It was also reported that he signed off on charges laid against Witness K, a former officer of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, and his lawyer, former ACT Attorney General Bernard Collaery. (more…)
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WILIAM J PERRY. Why I’m Still Hopeful About Trump’s North Korea Deal (Politico)
For a euphoric moment, it seemed everything was about to change on the Korean Peninsula. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un—two leaders with a flair for the dramatic and a willingness to shatter precedents—fanned expectations of a diplomatic breakthrough that would end a nuclear standoff and open a pathway to peace between the two Koreas. (more…)
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LYNDON MEGARRITY. The Politics of Northern Development in Australia
Northern Australia is popularly defined as consisting of all Australian land north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The north has long struggled to secure the investment and development which the south-east of Australia has taken for granted, because it is far away from the Sydney-Melbourne-Canberra parliamentary triangle and its key policy-makers and politicians. The north’s economic and social development has thus been incremental rather than spectacular. But every now and then, a political saviour will emerge who will insist that their political party truly understands the north’s national significance and will transform it if elected to power. But northern development is a dream best viewed in Opposition: once a northern advocate achieves government powers, the political dreams of Northern Australia often lose their allure. The rich history of the politics of northern development is explored in my new book: Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia (published by Australian Scholarly Publishing). (more…)
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WILLIAM GRIMM. Japanese fans’ shocking behavior at World Cup games.
Fans cleaning the stadium after matches they attend is an example of how one must be conscious of the convenience of those around. (more…)
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Australian laws should avoid hurting China.(Global Times China)
Australia has benefitted greatly from its relations with China, but has since begun to censor almost all the factors that have contributed to the benefits, and has interpreted its relations with China in the most negative way.
Such actions by Australia are beyond the Chinese public’s imagination of a country they once respected, and will bitterly disappoint them.
Now that the laws have been approved, Australia should reduce their negative impact on the Chinese diaspora and on relations with China. (more…) -
DOUG TAYLOR. Kicking goals in the fight against drugs
The heroics of Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup puts Portugal on the world stage. But behind the bright lights of the soccer World Cup, Portugal is leading the world in another arena: its efforts to curb drug abuse. (more…)
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IAN CRAWFORD. Korea: the forgotten war and Australians still missing
Understandably, the agreement of the Singapore Summit on the recovery of the bodies of US military from sites in North Korea has attracted less public interest than the denuclearisation issue. Ian Crawford, National President of National Korea Veterans Association, points to the significant losses Australia suffered in the harsh conditions of the Korean War and particularly attention to the 44 Australians killed in the war in its various phases whose bodies have still to be located. Some could well be discovered in the process of implementing the Singapore agreement. Ian has been actively engaged in the long running working groups between Australia and the relevant US authorities on this issue. (more…)